


in the end everything collides

by Kirstein_and_Arlert



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-12
Updated: 2013-05-12
Packaged: 2017-12-11 15:30:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/800273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kirstein_and_Arlert/pseuds/Kirstein_and_Arlert
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You don’t walk away from this life; Bobbi and Clint know more about the circle than most people, but maybe this time they’ll break it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in the end everything collides

**Author's Note:**

> Mentions of a miscarriage and sexual assault. Spoilers for Secret Avengers #1 and #2.
> 
> Title from My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark by Fall Out Boy.

**#01 – Air**

This is what haunts Clint: there are other worlds, and other Bobbis and Clints and, maybe somewhere, somehow, they get to keep what they have; the thought makes him so upset that he can’t breathe.

 

**#02 – Apples**

The first thing Clint smells when he wakes up in that other world is apples, and for some reason, he thinks of a heart shaped bathtub.

 

**#03 – Beginning**

They had a chance, once, this is what they never forget.

 

**#04 – Bugs**

Those could have beens and never weres bite like mosquitoes; small and painful.

 

**#05 – Coffee**

Bobbi leaves her mug on the breakfast island, still half full of cold coffee, just like before.

 

**#06 – Dark**

“I love you,” Clint says into the darkness when he thinks that Bobbi can’t hear him.

 

**#07 – Despair**

After she dies, Clint wonders why it wasn’t him; no one ever tells him why.

 

 **#08 – Doors**  
  
Clint’s life is one door after another slamming behind him, leaving with no option but to keep going because he can’t go back; it’s okay, he’s used to it.

 

**#09 – Drink**

They spend a night drinking cheap alcohol, remembering better times and, for the first time in a long time, Clint doesn’t find himself missing Bobbi’s smile; she leans against him, glass in one hand, laughing at something Clint’s can’t even remember and he wonders what she’ll do if he kisses her.

 

**#10 – Duty**

They are Avengers, so of course they go back; you don’t get to retire from this job (but they thought about it once).

 

**#11 – Earth**

The world is bright and Bobbi can’t quite believe that it’s real.

 

**#12 – End**

Clint remembers how Bobbi died, how he grieved for her, how there was another world where he loved her and lost her all over again.

 

**#13 – Fall**

Kissing Bobbi is like setting himself up for a fall, setting both of them up for a fall, the sort that takes your breath away and stops your heart because you’re so sure that this is it, but Clint can’t help himself; there is cheap alcohol on her breath, and she laughs again as he knocks his glass over and the red wine (cheap, awful, Kate will never let him live it down if she finds out) spreads across the carpet.

 

**#14 – Fire**

The last thing Clint thinks before the pain of the fire burning through him disappears is _I’ll get to see her again_ , and then he does.

 

**#15 – Flexible**

_Be careful what you wish for_ , Clint remembers someone telling him that as a child, but he doesn’t remember it until he _remembers_ (his wife died and his wife left; his wife is dead, but she is alive and she is still lost to him).

 

**#16 – Flying**

There was a ship and Bobbi is alive, she is home, but is feels like she is still so far away from the world.

 

**#17 – Food**

Clint still fries eggs and bacon shirtless; Hill tells him to put some clothes on and Bobbi knocks the frying pan out of the way before he can get burned.

 

**#18 – Foot**

Her feet are blistered and bloody, but Bobbi doesn’t stop running.

 

**#19 – Grave**

Clint visits Bobbi’s grave every month and, a month after he comes back to life (again), he stands there with his fingers on the headstone and says, “why do I always lose you again?”

 

**#20 – Green**

The green light shines across Clint’s skin and Bobbi gasps; this is not that world, but sometimes it feels just as alien.

 

**#21 – Head**

There are things that come to mind, people and places, entire events that are held in single moments which define them both and, sometimes, when there’s no one there to hear, Bobbi recounts them sometimes.

 

**#22 – Hollow**

Death leaves Clint feeling empty when he comes back, this isn’t any different from any other time anyone’s died, but he’s always thought it would hurt less when it was him dying.

 

**#23 – Honor**

At her grave, Clint says, _I’ll be a better man_ and he thinks that he forgets it sometimes.

 

**#24 – Hope**

The pregnancy test turns up positive, and they start to talk about the future and maybe, one day, leaving this all behind for something safer, more private.

 

**#25 – Light**

Clint suggests _Francis_ one day, stretched across the bed, one hand resting against her still-flat stomach, smile bright; Bobbi laughs and says they’ll think about it later.

 

**#26 – Lost**

The baby never kicks.

 

**#27 – Metal**

Clint’s pulling a nail from her hand – damn super soldier serum apparently doesn’t help when you fall off a balcony and land on a badly built garden shed – when he asks how she is; they were never very good at the talking part before, she thinks, and smiles as she tells him.

 

**#28 – New**

The New Avengers, a new start for Bobbi; Clint is _gone_.

 

**#29 – Old**

(Later, there is a team and, make no mistake, they _are_ a team, but sometimes Bobbi catches Clint’s eye and thinks, _Just like old times_ ; this is dangerous territory).

 

**#30 – Peace**

There is a new West Coast Avengers, so Bobbi and Clint convince Hill to let them off the leash long enough to check in on them: Tigra and Simon will run this team well, and Bobbi lets Clint shoot an apple off her head for old times’ sake (Coulson laughs and Natasha mutters, _typical_ under her breath, but she is smiling).

 

**#31 – Poison**

There are therapists, because no one is as stupid as some people think they are, and Bobbi wonders what they would say if she said, _he made me say yes to him a thousand times, and then he turned my husband against me_ and never says it.

 

**#32 – Pretty**

Clint stares whenever Bobbi wears a dress for a mission; Natasha rolls her eyes and digs her elbow into his ribs hard enough to make him wince.

 

**#33 – Rain**

Boston happens; the rain soaks through their clothes and they spend too much time resisting the urge to glance as they change in the small van.

 

**#34 – Regret**

“I’m sorry,” Clint says, and the following _I forgive you_ has been repeated a hundred times, but Clint will never stop apologising (and Bobbi will never have to ask what he’s apologising for).

 

**#35 – Roses**

They both have pressed rose petals from the room where they spent most of their honeymoon; Bobbi’s are trapped between the pages of an old biology textbook and Clint’s are in the back of an old photo frame of the West Coast Avengers.

 

**#36 – Secret**

Later, he says, ‘why do I always lose you?’ again, when she’s out of earshot and out of sight; he never says it to her face

 

**#37 – Snakes**

There are Skrulls and Osborn loyalists are still around, and you can’t trust anyone here (snakes in the gross, Bobbi murmurs, and Clint nods like he really understands).

 

**#38 – Snow**

There was no snow on the west coast, but Bobbi remembers wishing for snow on the cold evenings when she and Clint curled up in bed (there was no snow on that planet, surrounded by Skrulls, either but Bobbi tries not to think about that).

 

**#39 – Solid**

There are things that remind them that they’re alive: the ground beneath their feet, the way that metal gives under Bobbi’s hands, the ache of Clint’s sore muscles, the promise that this is real and they aren’t going to find out that it’s all a lie.

 

**#40 – Spring**

The end of the New Avengers is going to be a fresh start, Bobbi decides; she doesn’t call Clint when two agents show up at her apartment on Daisy Johnson’s orders.

 

**#41 – Stable**

Bobbi thinks of Clint, of Jessica Drew, of Jessica Jones and Luke Cage with their daughter between them; when Maria Hill calls her up to ask her the question personally, Bobbi says, _I’ll think about it_ and already knows what her answer is.

 

**#42 – Strange**

It’s strange to be back to SHIELD after so many years; Nick Fury is no longer here, Daisy Johnson and Maria Hill trade off jobs as they rebuild from the ground up, and Bobbi finds herself almost missing the West Coast and the Avengers.

 

**#43 – Summer**

The sun is hot against her skin and Bobbi stretches out on the blanket; they get two days before they’re called in for an operation.

 

**#44 – Taboo**

There are things they don’t talk about when they meet: Skrulls and dead men who wouldn’t stay away, and brothers who want you dead.

 

**#45 – Ugly**

There are parts of yourself that you never want to look at too closely, but Clint forces himself to, so that he’ll never revisit them again (there are worse things than killing, than letting someone die, and that is looking back and realising that you were once everything you hated, that you let the person you love down in the worst way and never even realised it at the time).

 

**#46 – War**

Their life is one long war; SHIELD asks and, separately, they say yes.

 

**#47 – Water**

They almost lose Clint in Austria, the deck giving way, and the water closing over his head; Bobbi isn’t surprised to find _I love you_ on her lips when Coulson and Fury pull him out, blue-lipped and shivering in the icy air.

 

**#48 – Welcome**

They had a chance once, and they can have a chance again; he kisses her as the clock strikes midnight, and it is _hello_ and _welcome back_ and _I missed you_ and _I love you_ all in one moment; happy new year.

 

**#49 – Winter**

There is snow on the east coast, and Bobbi digs her fingers into it until she can hardly feel them: there was no snow on the Skrull planet, but there was no hope there either; Clint calls to her from the Avengers Mansion.

 

**#50 – Wood**

The bed creaks beneath them (the carpet in the living room is going to be stained red with wine by morning); this is their new beginning, their fresh start (again), and this time they’re going to do it right (they swear).


End file.
